


Prematurely Snuffed

by s2dvd2



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: M/M, actually his name is never used, also towards the middle/end it gets a bit heavy, but patrick mentions him a lot, like almost every few paragraphs tbh, pete isnt really mentioned by name, so i guess thats a small warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-08-11 01:20:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7869970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/s2dvd2/pseuds/s2dvd2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trying to keep the train on its tracks is proving to be harder than I thought it would be, especially when it just wants to crash.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prematurely Snuffed

**Author's Note:**

> theres a playlist that goes along with this story. the playlist starts right after the very first dialogue between pete and patrick, and it continues on until the very end. the songs follow the path of the story, and the end of one song is right after each dialogue set between the two of them (i hope that makes sense?). anyway, here's the playlist:
> 
> Oh Ms. Believer - TØP  
> Asleep - The Smiths  
> Semi-Automatic - TØP  
> You - Breaking Benjamin  
> Rain - Hollywood Undead  
> Second Chance - Shinedown  
> Beyond the Sun - Shinedown  
> Trade Mistakes - Panic! At The Disco  
> Unknown Soldier - Breaking Benjamin  
> Evil Angel - Breaking Benjamin  
> Without You - Breaking Benjamin

The lighter sparks to life with a sputtered crackling sound and then flickers steadily in the not-so-black night. It sparks softly in the dry summer air, but the sound is lost in the noise of traffic hundreds of feet below me. The flame casts a warm glow over my hand; the light curls first around my thumb before coiling in my lap. It dances merrily, and I stick my fingertips into the inviting white-yellow glow of the fire. I can barely feel the burn anymore. As soon as the flame swirls around my finger, a short burst of wind blows through. The lighter's flame extinguishes quicker than it is born- 'prematurely snuffed' is the phrase that comes to mind. Dead before even given a chance to live. Irony, I call it.

I flick again, and the lighter sputters once, twice, three times before it reincarnates itself. I decide not to play around with its fragile life this time. I cup the flame with my hand to shelter it from any more unwanted wind as I bring it to my lips. The flame swallows the end of my cigarette; the cherry starts to glow a fierce red as it lights. I smile. I've been a smoker for five years now, and I've grown no fonder of the act, but I do find the way a cigarette looks at first light to be something of beauty.

Flame once again snuffed, I put the lighter back in my pocket. It sits there like a dead weight as I inhale. I close my eyes and let the breath of toxic air sit in my lungs, refusing to breathe it out until I have ashed myself out on the inside. My eyes open as the smoke escapes, and the wispy tendrils form tragically familiar calligraphy, suspended in midair for a few seconds before drifting off.

Calligraphy. The thought strikes up another, one that makes me sigh as I pull the cigarette away from my lips, held gingerly between my thumb and forefinger. Calligraphy makes me think of writing. Art, too, but mostly writing, writing done at two in the morning when the tears come faster than the vodka shots, but the shakes keep the words coming, and-

The thought stops midway through. Prematurely snuffed. I pull another drag from my cigarette while I try to get my train of thought back on its proper rails. I backtrack and think of writing, but I make sure the conductor knows to keep the train from straying on the tracks again.

Writing makes me think of something else. Train analogies do too, truthfully, and they meet at a similar crossroads. Combine train analogies with writing and the thing, that glorious thing that is born in their crashing wake is him. My boy. My best friend.

"Thinking of me now, are you?"

"Yeah. How'd you know?"

"You only smile that big when you're thinking of me or French fries. Or blowjobs."

"You're an ass, you know."

"Yeah, but I'm your ass. Right?"

I feel a burning on my thigh that calls my attention away, and I look down at my lap. A piece of ash has burnt through my jeans, after I failed to notice it falling off the end of my cigarette and landing in my lap. I swipe it away, smudge the ugly color against my hands and clothes. I look up again, stare at a building across the way. Another inhale, exhale writing into the sky, but I make sure to knock the end off after. I don't want it to burn me again. Or maybe I do.

I watch the slow descent of the ash I've knocked off down as far as I can, until the building blocks my sight of it anymore. I tilt my head to the side a little bit, and I glance down at my palm, now smudged a gritty dark grey from swiping at my jeans. They, too, are discoloured, but it's harder to notice. Grey stands out more against my pale skin than my dark jeans.

For some reason, ash makes me think of snow. Very different things, I'm aware, but for some reason, I've always associated one with the other. Ash is like... Black snow. Evil snow. Snow that's had the life sucked out of it, and that's why it's kind of whitish when one looks at it, but turns black when touched. Prematurely snuffed.

He likes the snow. He likes cool weather, really, fall and winter both, but snow is his favourite. He likes to build snowmen, and he likes to have snowball fights. He likes to drink coffee and cocoa next to the fireplace, and sometimes, even though they make me anxious, we listen to old Christmas carols. I wrote one with him one time, but I've forgotten the words now. Or maybe I know them, but I just have them locked away, away in that part of me I like to pretend doesn't exist.

Snow angels are his favourite. He loves to go out in the middle of night or the morning, always sometime dark, and lay on the cold ground and just fly.

"Why do you like making them in the dark?"

"Well, duh. It's easier to see the white against the black. Haven't you ever noticed? Can't you see the outlines better in the dark? White on black, and vice versa. It's pretty, really. I think the word everyone uses now is 'aesthetic.' It's a dumb term to me, personally, but in this instance, I think it fits. Don't you?"

I wonder what snow angels would look like if the snow were as black as the sky above it. Would I see them then? Would he?

I wonder how many cigarettes I would have to eat to cover this roof with ash just to test my theory.

I notice the cigarette in my hand has gone out as soon as the thought finishes passing through my head. The body has become nothing more than the burnt snow I want to turn to an angel, and the cherry is starting to bite at the filter of the cigarette. I toss the useless butt out into the night, watch it rise and fall down to the ground before shaking another from my pack. It lights, and I can't help but laugh. Laugh at myself, at what I've become.

Six years ago, I was someone different. The Patrick Stump from that time, he is a completely different guy, one who will not recognise me as himself if he were to see my face reflect his. That Patrick is... A better version of this one, of me. I can't really pinpoint how. Perhaps he's less weathered than I. Perhaps he's more likeable than I. Less corrupt. Perhaps he just came from a time where his dorky glasses were rose coloured ones, protecting his vision and making it impossible to see all the filth, pain, and lying that goes on in this world, in this life.

Or maybe his glasses are still on, the lens is just cracked and cloudy with fingerprints from all the readjusting he's had to do. Maybe he's still within me, somewhere, and I just can't find him under the clutter.

Or perhaps, more than anything, I just don't _want_ to find him.

The thought stops in its tracks, screeching to a halt before it is allowed to finish itself. Prematurely snuffed. I backtrack the thought, start somewhere new. Hopefully the conductor won't get distracted again.

Two years ago, I met him. I know, I know. 'This is getting too love story, too sappy.' And really, I'm trying to keep this from being a love story, but please know that love stories do not always equate to rumpled bed sheets and grandiose statements of "I'm so in love with you." Sometimes, they just simply equate to soulmates in the form of best friends. Asexual love, if I were.

"Oh God, Patrick, here you go again, getting all mushy on me. Just because your name is Stump doesn't mean you have to be sappy all the time, you know. Get it? Like a tree? Tree stump?"

"Yes, I get it. That's an old joke by now, doof."

"Okay, but then why are you laughing?"

The smile on my lips dies off as soon as I exhale the air in my lungs. I'm not sure why. It seems that, recently, it's become harder and harder for me to smile.

Not that he doesn't try. God, does he try. He makes hundreds of jokes, thousands of puns. He does anything he can to try and make me smile, but I just don't let him. I want to, but I refuse to, for some twisted reason.

Maybe I like his pity. Maybe I want him to feel sorry for me, because I'm so fucking sick of feeling sorry for myself.

I place the cigarette back between my lips and pull a drag. My eyes close as I let the tar fester inside of me. Even when it becomes impossible to hold the smoke in, I refuse to let the breath out. I want to suffer through this one.

Finally, I cough it out, face almost blue from lack of oxygen. My eyes open again while I try to wheeze my lungs back into proper action. For what, though? I'm only going to suck in more death as soon as I get the air flowing.

At this point, I don't think I'm smoking for any other reason than to kill myself sooner than my expectations will. But who knows? Maybe the thin bar I've hung my heavy expectations on will finally snap, come crashing down around me. Maybe they'll kill me first, and the money I've spent on cancer sticks would've been in vain. Wouldn't that just be a shame?

Wouldn't another shame be something I'd love to tattoo on my soul?

I scowl, scowl at myself and the train behind my skull. The conductor keeps getting distracted. I glance at the cigarette in my fingers, and I almost put it out. I almost put it out in favour of another kind of cigarette, one that will make the conductor up there retire for the night and just let the train be still.

I decide against it, but I put the cigarette out anyway. Why, I'm not sure. It felt right, I guess. It made me feel better inside, especially after the burning in my wrist faded out.

Maybe _that_ will keep the conductor on the right tracks.

I pull a third cigarette out of my pack, along with my lighter from my pocket. I go to light my cigarette.

"Hey, Patrick? You okay, my guy?"

"Yeah yeah, I'm fine."

"You're sure?"

"Yep. Why?"

"I just feel like there's something you're not telling me."

My hands start to shake a little bit, and the wind blows again, extinguishing the flame I produce. It blows my sleeve up, revealing the silver tree inhibiting my inner forearm. It glistens under the glow, both of the flame I can't keep alive and of the city's lights.

I like trees. I like the way trees look, full of life and leaves. They're just so pure, trees are, and there are so many different kinds. Maples, those are my favourites. Pine. Cork. Sycamore.

Then there's _my_ tree. The tree I put there, all shiny and silver and disgusting. I guess I could call it a Sickamore, since that's how it makes me feel to look at it. Sick. But also oddly... happy. Happy that I am so messed up inside, and I have something to show for it.

A dead tree carved into my skin, like an old lover's initials. Which, in a way, I guess they are. The letters form the branches, rooted deep into my veins. Waiting to flower, with even more scars. More burns.

My hands start to shake more violently. The cigarette tumbles out, slips through my fingers and my lap. It falls to the ground. Cigarettes. Who knows how many I've killed to make myself feel more alive.

Stop. Stop stop _stop_. My vision blurs, and I close my eyes to keep them contained. I have to stop thinking this way; the train is venturing into the badlands. I don't want it to crash- prematurely snuffed.

I keep my eyes closed for a while. I forget about trees, because I don't think I can backtrack to a positive place right now. I just try to clear my head. Clear, like rain water.

I open my eyes again. I look up at the sky, watch the clouds, muted by the city's lights, float passively through the air. Some are darker than those surrounding it. They hide the moon behind them, and some, I know, hold rain within.

I don't think of rain as a bad thing anymore. Rain used to be the worst thing. Rain meant I had to stay inside, bored, all day when I was a kid. I got older, and rain then became nothing more than a nuisance; rain meant having to wear my boots, so that stepping in puddles wasn't as messy. Nothing good came from rain.

"Hey, Patrick? What do you think of rain?"

"I hate it. It's messy, ruins everything. Why?"

"Oh. I was just wondering."

"Alright... What do _you_ think of rain?"

"... I don't mind the rain. Yes, it's messy, as you said, but.. I think it's healthy."

"Healthy? What do you mean by that? Healthy for crops?"

"Healthy for crops, sure. But also healthy for the clouds. Rain is like.. Like the sky's version of crying. Like it's been holding everything in for so long, and it's been withstanding all this stress and abuse, and it's finally letting it out."

"Oh."

"Yeah. I can't hate the sky for crying, because I wouldn't want the clouds to hate _my_ tears."

I blink a few times, then I avert my gaze. He believes his philosophy on rain is immature and silly. I don't.

I glance back down at my hands. They've stopped shaking so much, and I'm grateful for that. I'm not quite sure why, though. All it means is that I can hold my cigarette properly again.

I produce another cigarette from my pack. I've lost count as to what number this one carries with it- four? Five? Who cares? It lights with ease. I take in a couple of quick breaths, relishing the sour taste and rotten air in my lungs. I look back up at the sky again, since I have nothing better to look at.

The sky makes me think of space, and space terrifies the absolute hell out of me. I am so fucking afraid of outer space, of the shit that could be out there, despite my thoughts that alien interaction would be damn cool. More than anything, though, I'm afraid of its vastness and how unexplored it is- kind of like the ocean, but to a more extreme degree. I'm afraid of getting lost in the vacuum of space and being lost. Dying alone, surrounded by stars billions- trillions, even, of miles away.

But, as afraid of it as I am, I admire the beauty of space. The stars and the nebulas, they're all so beautiful and pure. Before my fear of space came in full swing- I wasn't always afraid of it, truth be told- I wanted to be an astronomer, or at least someone dealing with or around space. I studied everything I could- the sun, the moon, planets, stars, constellations.

I've mostly forgotten all that stuff now, though. My fascination with the void above ended when I became aware of the void within. I think it ended all too soon, because I really felt I was going places with astronomy. But, just like art, perhaps it was just a passing fantasy, bound to die eventually- prematurely snuffed.

The clouds above me move, revealing the moon. I blow smoke up towards it. It melts in with the clouds, camouflaged, but not before it distorts the cratered face carved into the pale lunar surface. Seconds later, clouds swallow the moon whole again. Gone, without even so much as a goodbye.

He says we'll leave this place soon, like we do with most every other place we go. He says when we leave, we won't look back, either; we'll just move forward, leave everyone in our growing shadows, gawking at our backs.

"Ever since we left that nowhere town, I can't stand staying cooped up in any one place too long. You know that. Feels like I'm running in place."

"So, instead, you choose to run away?"

"Yes, Patrick, I choose to run away."

"But why? What about when you find someone, decide to start a family with him or her? Wouldn't you like to stay in the same place then?"

"No. Because I don't need anyone."

"Thanks."

"You didn't let me finish. I don't need anyone but you, because you're different. Special. You _are_ my family, Pattycakes."

"But what about your mom? Your dad? Your brother, even?"

"... One day, I hope you'll understand that goodbyes are sometimes a better second chance than forgiveness."

Forgiveness, huh? And what, exactly, has he done that warrants anyone's forgiveness, especially from his family? Not a goddamn thing, despite what he thinks. I keep telling him that, that he's done nothing wrong. He keeps not believing me.

I, on the other hand, am a completely different story. Everything wrong with me, that's all my fault. My fault I'm such a fucking mess inside. My fault I have nothing but failures to my name. My fault we don't talk, my fault we _can’t_. My fault. My fault. My fault.

All my fault. And no one to forgive me.

I squeeze my eyes shut, sigh angrily. Try to slow that stupid fucking train down, for it's travelling much too fast and creating sparks on the tracks. Fires. Little fires in my head, ones that won't go out. I'm half tempted to push this goddamn cigarette into my eyes, because if my head is going to burn, why not incinerate the rest, huh? Don't put me out, though. Let me burn out. Like a dead star.

Funny, how a star can die, billions of miles away, but it's hundreds of years before anyone sees it. Maybe I'm a star. Maybe I'm already dead, and everyone is just too dumb to realise it. Maybe _I’m_ too dumb to realise it. Can't even see myself through the explosion.

Silence. Ringing in my ears. That annoying ringing that will never go away. That's my fault, too. Shoulda listened to dear old Mommy when she said to turn it down. Instead I only turned it up. Now look what I have to show for my own idiocy. Ringing in my fucking ears. Irritable. Fucking. Ringing.

I'm getting too angry, and I know I am. I have to turn it off before it gets worse- anger, prematurely snuffed- but I can't find it in myself how. I can feel it, the- the- the _urge_ to just- to just utterly destroy. Beat. Bruise. Make soft skin, supple and pale, turn blue, green, purple. Yellow, even. Paint a real Van Gogh, but with my fists. Dangerous. A face flashes through my mind- quick as lighting. I recognise it.

As my own.

My hands curl into tight balls as I try to slow down. Breathe. But it keeps itching, the need to hurt someone- anyone- _myself_ \- and I can't help it. I open my eyes; by the way they feel, they're probably blood red and steaming. Gaze locks on my forearm, on my stupid fucking Sickamore. And I want to turn the silver different shades. Maybe it's the artist in me. That poor, dead artist.

"Patrick? What- what are you doing? Are you okay, my guy?"

"Nothing, I'm fine, I just- I just-"

A broken sob leaves my throat, and the tears threaten to break the brink again. No. I will not cry. But the thought is so appealing- hot, salty tears. Silver, thanks to the moon's stolen light. Boiled mercury escaping me, like I'm a broken thermometer. Broken. Yeah. That's me, all right.

And guess what? It's all my fucking fault, too.

Another flash of fury shoots through, just as hot the tears I'm forcing to stay behind my eyelids. One. Two. Three. Four. Right in the middle of the tree trunk. And then it just stings. Throbs. And eventually, it will change colours. And the urge to cry fades, along with the fury. Leaving me with nothing, nothing but hollowness.

I'll take it, though. I'll take this empty feeling in my chest over the trapped, angry one any day. Anything is better than my aggression. Anything.

I sit in the not-so-quiet silence for a while, staring off at nothing particular. I'm not sure how long I was spaced out, truthfully. A minute? Two? An hour? I don't know. And, truthfully, I don't care, either.

Even though I'm out of my daze, I'm not fully in reality yet. Granted, I'm not sure why I see that as a bad thing, since being lost in nothing has kept my train still, but for some reason, it unsettles me. I don't like being out of myself, not really. So, to fully pull myself back in, I do the only thing I know how to do- I pull another cigarette from my pack, and I light up. Place it between my lips. Let the nicotine ensnare me with its vines again.

It takes a few minutes, but after a cigarette and a half, I feel back to myself, to Patrick, to being alive. Not that being alive has ever really held much for me. Maybe back to being half alive is the better term for it. Haha. Funny, right? Yeah. Funny.

I sigh out a breath of smoke, finally noticing all the lights in the buildings around me are out. Makes sense, seeing as it's something-after-midnight, but as someone who doesn't sleep at night, it's kind of eerie. It feels like the whole world has died, and for these few hours between nightfall and sunrise, I feel like I'm the only person alive. Eerie, sure, but it's a powerful feeling, too.

It's hard to describe- the feeling, I mean. It kind of feels like the old saying 'if a tree falls in the middle of a forest and no one is around to hear it, did it make a sound?' Because in that slot of time, my actions don't count. They probably will later, when the sun shines and shows what I have/haven't done, but not then. I can paint a masterpiece or I can lay in bed and stare at the ceiling, and no one would know, nor would anyone care until that grace period is over. I'm not held accountable for my actions in the dark. I can fly, or I can remain still, and who would know other than myself? It's a powerful feeling. But it's also so, so lonely.

While I appreciate and love the invisibility the night offers me, I do prefer to have company during my awake spells. I like knowing that I'm not alone. That someone else is alive, and that he, too, is a ghost like me. Invisible to others, but not to each other, he becomes my distraction, in the best sense possible. My words are driving the train, guided by the rails of our conversation.

And I'm grateful for that distraction, because otherwise my stupid train is nothing but wreckage. It crashes into all the walls I've put up in my head, ones that keep bad memories at bay. Vaults for my secrets and shames and all these things I want to hide, erase, pretend don't exist. But how can I, when my very own mind is trying to let them out into the light? In our conversations, my train is somewhere far off in my head. Without that, they're trying to destroy it.

And I've told him that- mentioned it, more like, so I'm not sure if he understands the gravity behind the words. Our four A.M. banter is the rope that saves me from the pits of regrets and mistakes. I don't sleep, that's a fact. But I prefer not sleeping because he's burning my thoughts. When my thoughts burn me, I'd give _anything_ to turn the mistakes I have on replay to sheep, count them out, and say goodnight.

There's a clock on the billboard a few buildings down. As I replace my snuffed out cigarette for a fresh one, I check the time.

"What time is it, Pattycakes?"

"Nearly two in the morning, my dude."

"Looks like it's gonna be another sleepless nights filled with conversation, huh?"

"Mhmm... Thanks for it, by the way."

"Thanks? Why are you thanking me?"

"For just... Y'know, staying up with me. It means a lot that you'd sacrifice your sleep to keep me complacent."

"I'm not 'sacrificing' anything for you, Patrick. I do it cuz I love you, and I love talking to you. It's funny, some of the stuff you say, and it's never boring, and it just- makes me feel better."

"How so?"

"It keeps me from thinking too much. Which kind of sounds like an insult, but I promise it's not, because if you knew the kinds of things that go on inside of my head, you'd understand how much that means to me, Patrick."

I smile to myself, because he doesn't understand how that plays back on him, too. He keeps me sane. I keep him sane. We need each other, and the thought makes me swell inside. Swell with happiness, something I know both of us rarely feel.

God, that thought makes me so, so fucking happy. And I'm sure that, if I actually had the balls to tell him that I need him, that it would probably make him just as happy. At least I hope so, because God fucking damn, it's just so true. I need him, and he needs me. We need each other like... Like a candle needs a wick. Without a wick, that candle is useless. It does nothing, just sits there, wasting away within itself. Purposeless. Lifeless. But with that wick, that stupid little wick, that candle will burn, and it will burn bright, and it will blind everyone.

The happiness is short lived, thanks to a passing semi-thought in my head. My smile fades. With a wick, a candle burns. That's fact. But when that candle's wax has completely melted after burning so bright, the candle will become nothing. It will shine bright for a moment, and it will be wonderful, but eventually that candle will die. Prematurely snuffed, by the very thing that gives it purpose and life.

The thought comes into my head: what if I'm doomed to burn out because of him? I wouldn't necessarily mind, to be honest. I'm mostly rotted out inside, so I don't mind falling to pieces. Not for him. Not because of him. Let him hurt me, I probably deserve it. He's the best thing to happen to me, so if I die by his hand? I'll take it. I deserve it.

Another thought comes in, and it sends my train down a plummeting, twisting hill: what if _I_ end up burning _him_? My stomach lurches, and I feel sick. Oh god. What if I do? What if I broke him down, what if I melted him into nothingness? Poof. Gone, without even saying goodbye. What if I did that? No no no, I can't do that. I can't do that to him. That boy is everything to me, everything to this world, and if I hurt him... Oh God. No. I feel like I'm going to be sick.

Suddenly, I want to turn the clock back. I want to make it so we never met- for his sake. I want to bite my tongue, hold my venomous curiosity at bay. I never want to ask about that stupid video, and I never want him to send it to me. But I don't. But I do, because I need him to save himself from me and my tendencies.

I know I'm not being rational, and I'm trying to stop, I really am, but all I can think about is the past, my past. All I can think about are the other candles I've inserted myself into and snuffed out. The past. The past. Why won't it leave me alone? It's always about the past, the one before, the one I can't let go. I want to let go, please believe that. I want to let them go, but their faces haunt me in the night, when my ears ring and I make paintings with my fists. One. Two. Three. Four. They are imaginary friends, who aren't really friends at all. They are trophies. Trophies of who I am, of how badly I can fuck up, and just how much I can hurt someone. I don't want to add his face to my collection. I don't want another ghost, another mask hiding betrayal, another imaginary friend lost to smoke. I don't. But I can't help but make them my keepsakes. Snapshots of my inability to commit, to be truthful, to maintain anything except the voices, and the bruises, and the burns and cuts.

My stomach lurches again, and bile rises in my throat, but I quickly swallow it down. The buildings lurch, too, tilting and falling and crashing and shattering like fine China. And I can't breathe. I have to stop thinking like this, stop thinking about them and the bad things I have done and am bound to do again, because this isn't about them. This is about _him_. My sunshine, my only sunshine. My best friend. My dude. I have to think about him, I have to, or the things won't stop moving and I won't stop thinking about the things in my head that I don't want to think about anymore, and then where will I be? More importantly, _what_ will I be?

Will I be smoke, writing sob stories in the sky? Will I be an evil angel, made of ash and crumbling? Will I be a decayed tree, rotting inside and out, like my Sickamore? Will I be a dead star, lost somewhere in the stratosphere? Will I be the ugliness I see in all of the beauty he's shown me? Or will he become all of that for me?

I don't know. But I do know this: I cannot burn him. I cannot hurt him- unless I undoubtedly already have- like I have to others. I can't do that. Not to him. Not to my angel. The others I can deal with, or at least tolerate. I didn't even want to hurt them.

I don't want to hurt anybody.

"I just get attached too quickly, and then I fuck it up. I always do."

"You haven't fucked things up with me, so I'm afraid I'll have to call bullshit on that one, Patrick."

"Yet, you mean."

"No, I don't."

"But you do. I'm just toxic, you know? Like that cigarette smoke on your breath. You like me while I'm there, I make you feel better for that short-lived second, but after a while, you can't wait to breathe me out."

My own breathing picks up. Hyperventilating. I haven't hyperventilated in years, but here I am, drowning in a sea of air. I squeeze my eyes shut tight. Hold it together. I have to hold it together. Think of him. My boy. My sweet boy, who I love too much but not enough to let go. He is the faith inside me. I need to talk to him.

I reach for my phone. It's in my pocket, nestled there like a sick little bird, silent and deadly. My hands shake as I put in the passcode- 0322, the anniversary of our friendship. I need to talk to him. I need him to tell me everything is okay, that he loves me and that everything is okay. That I'm just over thinking.

Overhead, the clouds move again. They block the moon- has it always been there? unexposed like that?- and the dead stars millions of light-years away, and they conceal their rain. Rain. Rain makes me think of him, more than I am already. I think of his philosophy on rain. How he thinks it's childish.

How he thinks so little of himself when all I can see are the stars written in his eyes.

His number is the first one in my recent call history- the only one. He is the only contact I have in my phone and in my life. The other lines, I've burned, like the wick I am. Wick. Wicked. I am wicked. I hit call, press the phone to my ear, and listen to the dial tone.

The sound of it ringing echoes heavily in my ear, replacing the self-made ringing, but not in a good way. It pounds into my skull, a heavy hammer against my brittle cranium. I'm afraid I might crack, let the flood gates down, and drown myself in memory. I don't want to do this. I need to do this. I need to hear his voice. I need to hear him say he loves me, and I need to know he means it, and that I'm okay, that we're okay. The second echo starts, louder than the first. A tidal wave, crashing and banging and swallowing me under.

No answer.

The train has completely derailed, and I don't even realise I'm crying. Hot and salty water, sliding down my cheeks, landing on my ashy lap. Silver colliding with dirt. The silver of a broken thermometer. I'm leaking mercury from my eyes, and I can't breathe. I am wicked. And broken. And I just need him to answer.

I try again. I don't know why, because I feel deep down that I'll get the same result. But I can hope I won't. I can hope, even though hope has never been my friend, the bastard. Maybe hope will take pity on me, and it won't leave me to wither by myself. I try his number again. Echo one, I clutch the phone tighter. Echo two, I clutch to bated breath. Echo three lasts forever. My spirits rise; it was a mistake, and he's going to answer.

But he doesn't.

The sobs get worse, and I'm not breathing anymore. I try to, but the air claws it's way back out of my poisoned lungs. Inside, I feel my mind cracking, right down the middle, threatening to break in half and spoil me. I try to ignore it, try again to call, as useless as it is. But I try.

One. Two. Three. Four.

He doesn't answer.

The fissure in my brain splits. I don't want it to. But it does.

And I don't know what to think. Did he leave? Did I burn him out, too, because I am wicked, and I am broken? If I did, I will hate myself for it. Because it means I collected another mask, another ghost, and I hate it. It means I am alone again. Broken. Wicked. Sick. Sickamore. And it hurts. It hurts so bad, because I really did try. I tried my hardest. And he's gone.

"I am with you, forever- the end."

My best friend. He is my best friend- no, he is my soulmate. And that sounds disgusting and cliché and I want to erase the term altogether, but I can't think of anything else to describe our relationship. I love him, and I was in love with his soul. And now he's gone. Because of me.

I don't notice I've stopped crying, that now all I'm doing is breathing funny, and hard. It's bad. My head is bad. Everything is bad. I am bad. And he's gone. I scream, and I chuck my phone into the night. The night that I don't think I can face without him. Watch as it falls all those stories to the ground. It becomes so small, and I can't see it anymore. I can only imagine how it shattered. Like I can imagine everything else around me shattering, shattering by my own hand.

"If you fall, then I will too."

My fault. This is my fault. My fault he's gone. My fault. My fault. My fault. I needed him, and this is my fault.

I start crying again. It is both panicky and sad, and the tears sear my skin. I want to cry myself an ocean so that I can drown myself. I want my tears to swallow me under and pull me apart.

"I won't turn my back on you."

I scream again, hide my face in my hands. The scream is muffled to the world but amplified to me. And with my eyes closed, I see myself plummeting like the phone, shattering against the pavement. And I consider it. And I want it. Because it is so much more preferable to this maelstrom in my head. I can't save what's left of me. Or maybe I can, but I just don't want to.

My hands drop to my lap, and I continue to cry. Cry, like the pathetic little boy I am. "Stop crying," I whisper repeatedly to myself, but it works in reverse. The tears come at a faster rate, burning ugly little ruts into my cheeks.

I hate myself. I hate myself for crying, and I hate myself for not being able to turn it off. Turn off my tears. Turn off my head. And I hate it all. I hate it all.

And I am the phone again. Falling. Breaking. Silent again. And I want it.

But I remember. I remember that I promised him that I wouldn't. But I can't find out how to reach him, and I can't bear to face the truth that I don't fucking recognise myself anymore, and I want to shatter. So I try to forget the promise.

"Don't leave me here again."

I try to forget. I want to forget. I have nothing left to lose.

“Don’t leave me here again.”

The phrase repeats itself. First, in my voice. Then, in the voice of all of my ghosts. Haunting. Damaging. Blow after blow after blow, and I can’t do this. I can’t. I just want to jump, to shatter. No more voices, no more ghosts. No more hurting the people I love. I am so sick of hurting people. So, so sick of hurting in general. I just want to jump to turn off the pain.

“Don’t leave me here again.”

I have nothing left to lose. All I have to do is push myself over the edge, and I will fall. Falling feels like flying, doesn’t it? It’s just the landing that hurts. But that’s okay. It only hurts just once, and then the pain is gone. I move closer to the edge, preparing myself.

“Don’t leave me here again.”

It’s my voice again, and it’s on a loop. And it is driving me crazy. And I move even closer to the edge.

And then the voice warps, and I hesitate.

“Don’t leave me here again.”

It’s his voice. And his face looms into my mind's eye. His smile, the one he hates that I love. And my tears begin to slow. Maybe I do have something left to lose. Because if I break that promise, I didn't try hard enough at all. I lied to him, and I don't want to lie to him.

I just want to know he's out there somewhere, waiting for me. Still loving me.

And it begins to rain.

**Author's Note:**

> now that you've (hopefully) read this whole thing, im 98% sure you're a little confused about how patrick was talking to pete if the only time he contacted him was at the end. the answer is he wasn't talking to pete at all. those bits of dialogue, those are all in patricks head. theyre flashbacks to past conversations that he had had with pete, and he was using them to keep himself sane until he couldn't anymore.


End file.
